Strands of sausage are made on high speed machines by extruding meat emulsion into an elongated casing. The meat-filled casing is then twisted to create sausage links. The linked strand is discharged from the sausage making machine. Loops of sausage comprising a plurality of links are deposited on moving hooks of a conveyor. The ultimate length of a given strand is determined by the length of the casing being filled. When a casing has been filled, the sausage-making machine is stopped; the casing is tied off or closed to prevent any meat emulsion from exiting the rearmost end of the casing; a new casing is then placed in position to be filled; the machine is restarted, and the cycle repeats itself.
The linked and looped sausage strand or strands are periodically removed from the conveyor or otherwise transported to a food processing station which normally cooks, smokes or treats the sausage strand before packaging for final delivery to the consumer.
With sausage machines creating up to 30,000 sausages per hour, the handling of the production of even a single machine is a significant task. Any inefficiency in the process translates into increased cost of production which is reflected in the price of the products to the consumer.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide for a method and apparatus for conveying and processing a strand of sausage or other foodstuff which is both economical and highly efficient.
A further object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for conveying and processing a strand of sausage or other foodstuff which is substantially continuous and which will minimize any interruptions in either the reception of the strand or its subsequent processing.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for conveying and processing a strand of sausage which will closely coordinate the reception and processing phases of the operation.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for conveying and processing a strand of sausage which will allow the processing phase of the operation to continue even though the reception phase is momentarily interrupted.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.